David's Meditation on Isaac Newton

Sometimes, you wonder about the less obvious story behind the obvious story. You read the accounts, you see the humans and their intimate tales of sorrow and loss, triumph and power, blessings and curses. And you wonder. A lot. Here is one of my wonderings.

The Rock That God Moved

I have such stupid brothers.
They could not wait to pass
the sheepwatch duties on to me
and get out of the grass.

I am smarter and I learnt.
A five-pound lump of stone
and a leather thong, ballistics
and boredom set the tone.

Israel is full of morons.
They're all archers, you know.
To stand and fight in armoured might?
A stupid way to go.

Why is everyone surprised?
Twenty-five centuries
more and Isaac Newton will lay bare
the force-fed mysteries.

Radial acceleration
And a single solid rock.
The book won't ever really say
Goliath died from shock.

You wonder why the real story was never written. And then you realise that you are looking down Time's wrong-way telescope. The old stories are truly the best. My more prosaic meditation can be found here.

"What Bloody Man Is This?"

I cannot stop thinking of Joab, ever since Der Springer invoked his name. "Do not let his hoary head go down to the grave in peace," said David the King of him (I Kings 2:2-9). But as I read through the Old Testament, it struck me how Joab (who was David's nephew) and David had danced through a precarious and deadly measure for many years. Joab was always the General, the Enforcer, the autonomous and powerful Right Hand. He did things how he wanted, was adept at pushing blame to the King (which, to be honest, was sometimes deserved), and was a pretty effective general. For years, especially as David began to decline, he was Kingmaker, Godfather, Chancellor.

So wherefore David's angst? Joab was the bane of any man who was promoted to equal rank (or even looked like it). He took out his rivals with summary ruthlessness, no matter what their quality or value to the Kingdom. In this way, he cost the Kingdom the lives of the two generals Abner and Amasa. And as David found his own place in the grave, Joab was still trying to escape.

Sometimes, we're like that, I guess — too locked in internecine strife to see the bigger picture. I realise that Joab's guile and choleric nature are also traits that I can find in myself if I look deep enough and hard enough. It is a humiliating experience to see yourself that way. But having seen yourself that way, it is also possible to find it in others. And that is why the Good Book says, "There is none righteous, no, not one."

I am reminded of the theme of blood in Macbeth. At the beginning, a nameless soldier stumbles towards Macbeth, Thane of Glamis, with bloody injuries that make him seem a likely harbinger of news of battle. There's also the moment at which Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost at the table ("Shake not thy gory locks at me! Thy bones are marrowless; thy blood is cold!") In all the other incarnadine moments of that Scottish play, the appearance of blood presages doom and the intimations thereof. At the very end, it is the 'untimely-ripped' MacDuff who is the bane of the self-made king.

These are disturbing thoughts. I thrust them aside. I need to look after bees in Sussex, or at the very least, prune the hydrangeas. Cataloguing a library also helps. Hierophant, are you out there?

David & Goliath

I was always fascinated with this story when I was a small boy. Dad being a military historian, I always wondered what the fuss was about. Here's a recap (full story here).

David was a shepherd boy with exceptional courage, tactical skill, and brains. The Israelites had been challenged by Goliath of the Philistines, an armoured giant of exceptional size. The Israelites were dismayed because the challenge to single combat looked fatal for the respondent – but they weren't thinking out of the box and did not look past Goliath's bronze armour and panoply. In fact, there was precedent for a superior response – the footsoldiers of the Promised Land had long used projectile weapons with great accuracy.

David merely went back to his roots. Taking five large stones (sling-stones could weigh up to 500g or so), the shepherd boy went hunting. According to the Biblical account, his first shot embedded itself in the giant's head and Goliath died at once. This is not beyond belief; a sling-stone can travel 200 metres in a ballistic trajectory and impact with crushing force.

Quite often, I think people reading this passage come away with the wrong idea. This story is not about blind faith, courage which shuns armour, or the triumph of an anointed youth over experienced men of war. It is the story of using your brains before your enemy uses his; it is the story of ranged weapons and force multipliers. David was very clever. He knew that at 200 metres, a slinger can fire three 500g rocks before a fully armoured man covers half the distance. In extremis, two rocks tied at either end of a braided rope make the weapon called a bolas – this wraps around an enemy's neck or lower limbs, tripping, entangling or incapacitating him.

David had faith in the skills he had honed in his youth, the courage God had blessed him with, and the martial traditions of his predecessors. When we talk about his faith, we should see exactly what it was that he believed in, and why it was that the story ends eventually with King Saul throwing a spear at the young hero. David, basically, was an insufferable smart-ass as far as Saul was concerned. And thus endeth this lesson.